Toyota was (after Honda) the second Japanese car company that came down with the current Chinese strike bug. Toyota is gladly taking a back seat on this. They solved their problems much quicker than Honda. Toyota said today that their largest plant in China will definitely be open for business on Monday.

A strike at two Toyota-affiliated parts makers in Tianjin had brought Toyota’s largest assembly plant in China to a halt. FAW Toyota Motor Co., a joint venture between Toyota and China’s FAW Group, ran out of parts. More than half of the cars Toyota manufactures in China come from this plant.

The strike had to be settled quickly. As The Nikkei [sub] reports, this is “a crucial time for the auto maker, which saw a relatively moderate growth in sales in China of 21 percent to 700,900 vehicles last year compared to a nearly 50 percent surge in the country’s overall market to about 13 million vehicles.” Toyota wants to make sure it won’t happen again: “In this sensitive period, Toyota will take the initiative to actively communicate with workers in any of our plants to understand their mindset and requirements,” said a Toyota China spokesman to China Daily.

Any guesses who will be next? Going by size, it ought to be Nissan. However, they already had a short brush with the strikes, because a striking parts supplier of Honda also makes steering wheels for Nissan. Nissan’s production in China remained unaffected, because Nissan hadn’t taken just-in-time all to seriously and kept a sufficient stock of parts.

The blame must be placed on the Chinese government. Like western countries, China has a comprehensive set of labour laws and regulations. The difference however, is that these are often not enforced, particular when a (local) government has a vested interest in the business enterprise. In those cases, government officials and regulators often collude with the businesses, to the detriment of the workers.

The fact that the state-sanctioned “union” is little more than a mouthpiece for the state, basically leave the workers to fend for themselves.

Even in a society where people are taught to accept authority with little question, they can be pushed only so far before they rise up against unjust treatment.

Had the government really enforced its own labour laws (i.e. no work day which is longer than 12 hours), these situations would not happen.